Chanel's Fics

...And I Can't Stop Falling - Hunhan

... AND I CAN'T STOP FALLING // PART 3

Love comes

in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on

and on, a hollow cave

in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.

- Margaret Atwood, “Postcards”

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Rain misting down and beading on his skin, a cool breeze blowing against his face. He opens his eyes and he’s lost in a landscape of falling water, a silver-white cloud. He blinks and finds a stone walkway under his feet, pale flowers spiraling to either side: a garden. But he doesn’t know where he is.

“Are you lost?” a voice asks him. Luhan blinks again. There’s a boy walking towards him now, brown hair plastered to his forehead, tall and pale. He looks vaguely familiar. He smiles and holds out his hand.

“Come with me,” he says. “I know the way home.”

And he takes Luhan’s hand in his, and squeezes lightly.

Luhan wakes up abruptly to the stars swimming across his vision, the window half-open and the sky flushed pink with light. He can still feel the raindrops on his skin, and runs his fingers over his arm, expecting dampness.

The dark lump sleeping beside him shifts; Luhan turns to see two sleepy brown eyes under a mop of rumpled hair, a familiar face. They yawn in unison.

“Good morning,” Sehun says drowsily. “What did you dream of?”

Luhan smiles and drops a kiss on his cheek. “You. Now go back to sleep.”

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In the dim dawn light Luhan sits in the bathtub and listens to the sound of Sehun’s snores. The water level laps at his neck just below his chin, and his clothes float slightly off of his skin. He likes the feeling, the coolness of the waters like a silk cocoon, heavy and light all at once, seductive. When he was younger he would go out to the pool in the morning and evenings and immerse himself in the turquoise water, float two feet beneath the surface until the light started blurring.

This is what he imagines now, letting his wet pajamas drag him to the bottom of the cramped bathtub; he thinks of light pearled golden on blue-green ripples, the sharp sting of chlorine in his nostrils. The water closes softly over his head and he keeps his eyes wide open, watching the warm fuzzy light. Sparkles dance and die in his lungs. He keeps his limbs loose and heavy, like a drowned person, like a dream floater. The water feels like silk on his skin. He wishes he could breathe it in.

The water presses down him and around him, smooth and heavy. He thinks of the people who drown themselves, of women who walk into the swirls of a river until their drenched heavy clothing drags them under the currents. He wonders if it feels so calm, so peaceful, so beautiful. Because that’s what he likes about this, what it feels like. It feels like drowning.

Too soon all his breath has escaped him in tiny silvery bubbles, and Luhan wishes he could stay down longer, but his lungs are starting to hurt. And he doesn’t even have to move, the water pushes him back up to the surface as soon as the last bubble drifts away. As if the water knows that he can’t take a breath. He breaks into the air and takes in gulps of cool dry air, lights exploding inside his skull.

“Luhan,” Sehun calls sleepily from next door.

Luhan sighs and pushes himself out of the bathtub. Now that he’s leaving it the water feels heavy, dragging down at his limbs, his waterlogged clothes. He pads out of the bathroom with water streaming down his body, trailing puddles behind him. He’ll clean it up later,